Very Mindful: Cultural Moments That Mattered in 2024
It’s time to hold space for the cultural moments of 2024 and take stock of the things that made us laugh, cry, and say ‘WTF?’.
It was a year defined by one woman’s era-spanning world tour (no gold stars for guessing who). The Drake/Kendrick Lamar beef played out in real time over several single drops with Kendrick walking away holding the crown. Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Challengers’ convinced the public of the appeal of threesomes AND techno AND tennis. Nara Smith became the de facto ‘trad-wife domestic goddess’ influencer by making everything from scratch in her kitchen: Oreos, chewing gum, and even a Marc Jacobs handbag. Football didn’t come home but Oasis’ reunion helped to definitely maybe lift spirits once more. Wellness was in, so was smoking – so was ‘bumpin’ that’ by the looks of #bratsummer. Is this because ‘In the klerb, we all fam’? Short answer: yes, if it’s of the pink pony variety.
Girl, was the above ‘so confusing’? That’s because ‘culture’ continues to operate on an increasingly fragmented scale with communities organising around their favourite artists, shows, or what have you, while sometimes overestimating their importance in culture at large. The ‘watercooler moment’ hasn’t disappeared, there are now simply more watercoolers for people to congregate around while discussing the latest viral meme or TikTok, often achingly specific, that really made them ‘LOL’ or ‘LMAO’ (yes, both of these are ironically back too).
Below are a series of cultural highlights that made a mark on the industry over the past 12 months including film, pop divas, sporting stars, AI, and viral creator moments.
Agalia Tan
Senior planner at We Are Social Singapore
This year embodied a Betty Boop-esque approach to modern femininity. Women are collectively taking on a new air of playful candour (with a dash of insouciance) as we simultaneously commiserate over the state of modern dating and find fun in giving in to our ‘delulu’ desires every now and then.
And so we’re communicating with cheeky wit, each message we send appended with a winky face emoji. The year's pop landscape reflects this mood, with tracks like Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso' and Gracie Abrams' 'That's So True' becoming generational anthems. In theatre, ‘Six The Musical’ has been taking the spotlight, where it retells the story of the six wives of Henry VIII through the female gaze. Beyond music, TikTok trends like #womeninmalefields reveal how women are flipping the script on modern dating tropes as they reciprocate in kind and have a laugh about it.
Becca Marshall
Director, brand planning and social media at Mythic
The lingering effects of pandemic shutdowns have heightened the divide between our in-person and online lives. However, now we're witnessing a blurring of the lines that separate those lives in new and interesting ways. City-by-city celebrity lookalike contests are bringing online fandoms into the real world, building unique, shared in-person experiences within communities that typically exist online.
The uptick in watching concert live streams allows people to feel like they are a part of in-person moments within communities, even when they aren’t physically present. This trend has helped us continue our immersion into our chosen niches and further our online conversations.
Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour exemplifies how digital relationships within fandoms explode into the real world, as fans create friendship bracelets to swap with one another, and finally meet online friends face-to-face, in arenas across the globe. As digital platforms continue to create a home for our online communities, the desire to organize in-person experiences rooted in these passionate online communities will likely keep growing.
Calvin Innes
Creative director at JvM NERD London
If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that pop culture thrives in chaos, and more than that, it often reflects it. From subversive blockbusters to nostalgic revivals, the year was a kaleidoscope of trends that opened a window to the cultural psyche.
Major film releases, ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’, embodied the year’s fascination with corporate-sanctioned chaos. These films turned meta-humour and fourth-wall-breaking into art forms, resonating with audiences who have grown weary of predictability. The commercial success of both titles reflects this.
Another significant, but unsung moment was the growing acceptance of subtitles and global storytelling. ‘Shogun’ not only shattered the myth that Western audiences won’t ‘read’ TV but also signalled a shift toward immersive, multicultural narratives. Meanwhile, Netflix and Disney doubled down on anime and K-dramas, catering to younger audiences hooked on authentic, cross-cultural experiences. The audience numbers don’t lie, with K-dramas being some of the most popular titles on Netflix currently.
Of course, nostalgia had no small part to play in 2024. Reunions from Oasis to the reimagining of Mrs. Doubtfire as a West End musical or the release of further titles tied to well-known and well-loved IPs, like ‘Transformers One’ or ‘Alien: Romulus’, brought comfort to a world navigating uncertainty, like only nostalgia can. Now, nostalgia isn’t new but 2024 showed that it isn’t just about revisiting the past; it’s about reinterpreting and reinventing it for new audiences, new platforms and it’s about creating excitement that can cross generations.
These moments underline the year’s key meta-trend: audiences crave stories that feel both personal and universal at the same time. Moving into 2025, creators should lean into experimentation while respecting the intelligence of their audiences. The appetite for diverse, daring, and emotionally engaging content has never been greater than it is right now.
Dr. Karen Correia da Silva
Senior strategy director at Iris
The biggest moment for me in film this year was Coralie Fargeat’s explosively popular ‘The Substance’. It definitely succeeded in being one of the most impactful, absurd, hilarious, and frankly disgusting takedowns of contemporary beauty culture in recent years. We all squirmed at the David Kronenberg-esque body horror of it all, and Demi Moore re-emerged as a beauty icon in her 60s. Not only was Fargeat’s criticism so spot on, but the film itself challenged viewers to squirm through their discomfort and realise how absurd our filler-focused and injection-heavy chase for youthful beauty really is.
When it comes to music, Chappell Roan’s ascent to fame was especially poignant, but the biggest moment that she drove in culture this year was her viral TikTok that blasted ‘crazy and entitled’ fans who were stalking her in her daily life. It seems that fandoms have become increasingly parasocial with their idols, even going so far online to feel that they should have a say in how their favourite celebrities behave and live their lives. Her cutdown of unhealthy fandom behaviour marked a moment in 2024 for us to all think about the intensity of our obsessions with celebrity in culture.
On social, a standout moment for me was Reesa Teesa’s ‘Who TF Did I Marry?’ series on TikTok, which the New York Times dubbed as the moment TikTok entered its ‘midlife crisis era’. With over six hours of content telling the story of her divorce, people were devouring the series in the same way they would long-form podcasts, signalling a shift around long-form content on TikTok. Even though the platform has a reputation for being a gen z and gen alpha haven, new data shows us that 40% of the platform’s users are millennials, so this really signalled a turning point in the transformation of TikTok into a midlife confessional space.
Nick Beevors
Head of strategy at Armadillo
Oasis’ long-awaited reunion tour wasn’t just a music industry moment—or a masterclass in the power of distinctive brand assets—but a flashpoint for debates about AI. A single date, presented in the band’s iconic typeface, was enough to send the internet into meltdown. But beyond the nostalgia, it also highlighted how AI shaped 2024’s biggest cultural moments.
The campaign firstly used AI and CRM principles quite masterfully. Fans were segmented by engagement and location, with personalised gig notifications based on streaming habits, merch purchases, and concert attendance. It was CRM at its best: targeted, relevant, and quietly effective.
But things got loud when Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing algorithm, powered by AI, became a public controversy. As ticket prices surged in real time, fans and politicians alike debated the fairness of AI-led pricing. While surge pricing isn’t new (we’ve all pretty much accepted it for taxis or getting cheap flights), applying it to emotionally charged experiences like concerts drew new lines of acceptability.
More broadly, AI’s role dominated the cultural conversation in 2024. From using ChatGPT to roast social profiles to questioning whether AI could rival human creativity, everyone had an opinion. AI had officially entered the mainstream.
Looking to 2025, the trend will likely shift from novelty to practicality. The big question isn’t what AI can do, but how we use it—whether to enhance society, fuel creativity, or simply help write articles like this one.
Kiera Pérez,
Director of Talent UK at Sixteenth
2024 has really been shaped by viral cultural moments and many of which seem to have been driven by creators themselves. In the world of music, we’ve seen artists tapping into social media and creators amplifying their live performances. An artist who has mastered this approach has to be Charli xcx, not only was the face of ‘brat summer’, but also tapped into culture, inviting the creator of the viral TikTok dance for her hit song ‘Apple’ to perform it live at her concert. This collaboration transformed a viral trend into a real-world experience, turning it into a cultural moment that shaped the online world all summer. Similarly, Sabrina Carpenter tapped into what was going on culturally online during her ‘Short N’ Sweet’ tour by bringing Domingo from the viral SNL sketch to her iconic Juno intro, where she "arrests" a fan for being "too hot." Both artists are great examples of how by blending digital culture with live music, artists can create moments that transcend the stage and continue to thrive online.
In film, the industry experienced a kind of resurrection following the actor’s strike at the end of 2023, with creators playing a central role in shaping the conversation. What was once a media landscape dominated by traditional media, we’ve seen a shift leveraging creators to tap directly into cultural trends. Warner Bros. strategy for ‘Challengers’ is a prime example of this new approach – instead of relying on traditional press tours, they turned to creators who understood not only their audiences, but what was going on culturally online. This approach not only amplified the film’s buzz, but also led to the rise of trends like ‘rat boy summer’.
Creators have become the architects of cultural moments, transforming trends into a global phenomena. By engaging with audiences in real time, whether through viral dance challenges or creator-driven promotion, they’ve redefined how entertainment spreads and stays relevant. By staying tuned in the online culture, artists and brands can ensure their influence extends far beyond a single event, living on through social media and digital platforms long after the moment has passed.
Erika Davis
Social strategist at Chemistry
We came here for love and stayed for Kordell! A two-second TV mention quickly turned into a cultural takeover, showing how niche marketing and timely engagement can become a lasting phenomenon. Kordell Beckham, the manifestation king proudly answered “What’s your long term goals in life?” question with “I want my own Cheez-It flavour” and the rest is history. While Kordell fleetingly mentioning Cheez-Its surely launched their social listening into a frenzy, he left Love Island with more than love and a coveted brand shoutout.
Kordell’s introduction on the show became a TikTok trend, resulting in everyone dancing with their suitcases, his candid profession of love-inspiring halloween costumes, and a plethora of brand deals fighting to be on top. Kordell is no longer organically creating the trends; he is the trend of 2024! Having any quality interaction with the people’s chosen one (and half of the first Black couple to win the show) garnered large amounts of support, and fans expressing anticipation of what’s next.
Now coined ‘the most popular Beckham brother’, over NFL player Odell Beckham Jr. the ‘Kordeezy Cheezy Duo’ box sold out twice and is in high demand to return. With that, Cheez-It announced Kordell as its CFO (Chief Fantaseez Officer) for the college football season. All eyes are on Love Island USA to see if they can build on this momentum… in the name of love, of course.
Nema Vand
Film director at Eva Nosidam
The smartest thing a brand can do is leverage a moment. As a director, I’m always looking to go where the attention already is. It’s a core thesis for the work we do at VaynerMedia and Eva Nosidam. We know that the audience is already engaged in the conversation and thus much more likely to feel connected to the creative of the spot. For me, a few viral moments that really broke through this year were Pookie, Moo Deng, and Domingo – these are all massive opportunities for brands to secure huge wins with their audiences. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw Domingo make a cameo during next year’s Super Bowl.
Conor Biddle
Creative director at The People Platform
At The People Platform, we have a unique perspective on this topic, as our whole thing is understanding real-world consumer behavior and providing valuable insights into audience engagement with media and entertainment.
Our data reveals some interesting trends that align with one of the cultural moments LBB highlighted: "Corporate-sanctioned chaos" resonated with audiences. Both ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ and ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ achieved substantial box office success with each film capturing over 70% of all admissions on their opening weekends.
‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ garnered 76% of all ticket sales on its opening weekend. It's important to note that admissions data, rather than box office revenue, provides a more accurate measure of actual movie theater visitation and foot traffic, as it reflects the number of tickets sold regardless of ticket price fluctuations (matinees, pricing differences by city, age-based tickets, etc.). ’Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ spent three weekends in the number one spot and eight weekends in the top five. ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ represented 74% of all admissions on its opening weekend.
Bennett Bennett
Cultural strategy director at GUT
When I think about 2024 in basketball, I think sell-out crowds. Massive ratings and a new media deal. A big three (in ESPN’s Elle Duncan, Chiney Oguwmike and Andraya Carter) that needs no debate. Yes: rookie sensations were the big stories. But beyond the storylines and toxic media discourse, there’s a reason why the most popular brand of the year only has room to grow.
For one, the marketing effort is starting to match the energy of the W’s fandom, to the point that three new teams have been announced through 2026. However, I look at three major moments pushing their momentum forward: the beginning of Unrivaled, the new three-on-three league; the leap of newer college stars, and the players union opting out of their CBA. If this year was about everyone watching women’s sports, 2025 should be about more investing in women’s sports.
It’s time to have a serious talk about Kai Cenat’s influence: the first streamer to grab a Nike sponsorship. The most subscribed to personality in a single month on Twitch. Kenan and Ken thought he’d be a perfect fit to their ‘Good Burger’ remake. There’s already a newness to the internet culture we participate in because of young talent like The Rizzler. But one looks at the fairytale where Cenat goes from sparking a full Union Square mosh pit last year, to kicking it with John Cena, SZA, and Kevin Hart on his livestreams.
He’s a 23-year-old Black man from The Bronx transcending what we’ve known of online creators in the mainstream, save for MKBHD. He’s bringing people together when the headlines make one scary point about the loneliness crisis after another. And after his latest Mafiathon, he’s a clear draw that can impact any brand or network he touches.
‘Emilia Perez’ as a flashpoint for luxury brands, trans voices, and storytelling.
It’s an Oscar contender and potentially the most successful movie in Selena Gomez’s career. But Emilia Perez is also the biggest hit for Yves Saint Laurent, which launched its film production arm two years ago. Nominated for 10 Golden Globes, it’s driving conversations beyond the box office, including on who gets to tell stories about trans representation. A24 has reminded us of the vehicle independent films can be to reshape the moviegoing experience. In the slow Hollywood restart, I wouldn’t count out Saint Laurent Productions in being the next studio on young actors' lips.
Eva Starosolsky
Insight manager at Bountiful Cow
#bratsummer was a masterclass in delivering ‘Relative Advantage’.
British pop star Charli XCX has made a name for herself with her pioneering approach to music, marketing, and her personal brand. ‘brat’, Charli’s sixth studio album, dropped in June and quickly became a movement, fully embedded in culture.
Transforming from a childish insult to an it-girl endorsement, brat was even crowned “word of 2024” by Collins Dictionary. In stark defiance of the ‘clean girl’ trend, brat embraces imperfections, partying, and authenticity.
The simple, pared-back lime green album artwork with Arial font proved a significant marketing win for Charli. Promotions included a towering ‘bratwall’ in Brooklyn and the London Eye glowing green, followed by an explosion of brat-green-inspired memes online.
Brat became the epicentre of pop culture, inspiring numerous marketing campaigns before being embraced by Vice President Kamala Harris, firmly cementing it as a global phenomenon.
By doing things differently, Charli has identified and filled a clear gap in the music market to deliver relative advantage. For her upcoming tour with Troye Sivan, Charli has promoted ‘brat’ on the gay dating app Grindr and has set up a finsta for her fans (a fake Instagram, for the uninitiated).
#bratsummer was a masterclass in challenger marketing. By mirroring the way her fans communicate, Charli acts like an up-and-coming artist, despite this being her sixth album.
Charli’s key ‘Relative Advantage’ edge lies in smashing marketing conventions and trusting her fans to love her all the more for it (and they do). Charli’s marketing feels more like a movement than a campaign—a movement that is not slowing down anytime soon. Now – who is ready for a brat girl Christmas?
Lois Kettlewell
Managing partner M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment
When Paul, George, John and Ringo landed at JFK Airport in 1964, Beatlemania swept across America.
Fast forward to 2024 and Swifties are in the cultural spotlight as music fans globally grabbed their friends, sequined skirts, and passports to travel to Taylor Swift shows in their millions. British fans have long travelled to see their football teams play away, made a holiday out of attending big sport tournaments, and jumped on a plane or train for the Olympic Games, World Cup or Euros. The industry of sport tourism is worth about $565bn globally, but, this year, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour saw music entering the game.
Music tourism involves travel experiences driven by the desire to attend live music events, concerts, and festivals and, according to research by CMI, it’s predicted to be valued at $13.8bn and climbing.
Spanning 149 countries and grossing $1 billion in revenue, The Eras Tour took centre stage but while Swifties dominated, there were also Charli XCX’s Brats and Adele fans who flocked to Munich to see her sing, in a custom-built stadium no less. Next year it will be Oasis, and fans with that hot ticket are expected to travel from around the globe to destinations that will see the duo back together again.
While fans of these music juggernauts are very different – in demographic, taste in music and lived experience – what they share is a sense of community and a desire to be together. Fans are keener than ever to spend time and money on elevated music experiences as a group, creating more opportunity for brands in the travel and tourism sector to engage with these audiences.
So, while the amount of touring meant The Beatles eventually ran out of road as a live act, modern artists can relax and wait for fans to come to them.
Jay Davis
Senior creative strategist at Seen Presents
2024 was the year of hyper-cultural fragmentation.
Everything seemed to happen everywhere all at once. Brands went big on great moments like #bratsummer and ‘Wicked’, but for me, the best cultural moments are less planned and a little more organic. Don’t get me wrong, ‘Popular’ almost made a late entry to my Spotify
Wrapped top five, but I prefer it when things happen a little more spontaneously.
The Paris Olympics was the gift that kept on giving in this respect. Main character energy, (the predecessor to the aura trend) flooded the atmosphere and was ultimately manifested in the Air Pistol Shooting events by the Turkish shooter, Yusuf Dikeç and South Korean Shooter Kim Yeji. Yusuf’s gearless attire, nonchalant stance and Silver medal is what made him a viral sensation, while conversely, Kim wore full attire but oozed a lethal yet cool demeanour while effortlessly breaking the world record with her daughter’s toy elephant hanging from her hip. Both shooters could have held their weight next to Keanu Reeves or Matt Damon in an action blockbuster, based on aura alone.
Beyond the coolness of these feats, these two Olympic icons brought such unexpected momentum to these trends and ended up truly enriching not just the sporting but the cultural experience of the Olympics. I love that they both showed up so distinctively differently and managed to capture our hearts and minds all the same. This, to me, is the essence of culture.
Tom Sneddon
Co-founder and managing partner at Supernova
To paraphrase Ol’ Blue Eyes: “Trends, sure I saw a few…but then again too few to mention.” What really caught my eye in 2024 was the drop in collective attention – which has crashed by 12% in just one year according to Kantar. To put that into perspective, for all the cultural currency of #bratsummer or ‘Demure Autumn’, what grabbed 43% of people’s attention in 2023 caught only 31% of eyes in 2024.
But here’s what’s really interesting – this isn’t just about gen z. Every generation is showing content fatigue. So, for an industry built on capturing hearts and minds, 2025 is going to need us all to get up close and personal with REAL people’s values, needs and behaviours.
Lauren Castagni Mote
Founder and CEO at Sage7
Was culture in 2024 a bit of a dud? Sure, there was the instantly iconic photo of a bloodied Donald Trump that is destined to be dissected by conspiracy theorists for the next fifty years, plus the almost unbelievable stories from Willy's Chocolate Experience, which is still baffling in its brazenness. But do these really compare to 2023's first flush of Eras tour madness and the behemoth 'Barbenheimer', a moment that felt not only impactful, but weirdly hopeful?
The closest we got this year was the Kendrick-Drake beef – the first rap-feud to play out in real-time instead of album cycles. But despite the deluge of diss tracks, wild accusations, huge streaming numbers, and references in presidential campaigns, it all felt a bit pointless. The Olympics opening ceremony failed to deliver any of the usual pizzaz you’d expect from the French, ‘tenniscore’ didn't hit the zeitgeist in the way everyone predicted when the Challengers trailer dropped (instead it was the JFK Jr. inspired 'I Told Ya' T-Shirt that became a must-have), and the internet managed to make memes out of another famous man taking advantage of his wealth and power ('nice try Diddy').
Looking back on 2024, it feels like we veered dangerously close to a state of monoculture – specifically a blur of nostalgic hues and derivation. We've become so obsessed with cultural relevance, we've created performative participation. If every person who posted their hot take on #bratsummer had actually listened to a Charli xcx song before this year, she'd be one of the biggest selling artists of all time. Yes, the root of a 'cultural phenomenon' is engagement, but this FOMO is nothing more than bandwagon-ing and appropriation. Cultural relevance has become about colonising instead of creating (to borrow a takedown from K. Dot), and subculture and counterculture are so intertwined with the mainstream that the boundaries of identity are slowly being eroded. We need these territories to exist to keep the cup full. I can't recall another year I've struggled to pick out a cultural highlight, or a moment that feels like it will still matter this time next year. But perhaps 2024 was always destined to be one when historical significance trumped cultural significance (excuse the pun).
Martin Severs
Head of strategy at Collaborate
This year I really enjoyed the first signs of a rejection of the mass commodified culture that has dominated music and film for at least the last 10 years. Big budget movies failed to hit their numbers while surprise hits and independent films often shone through. The music reality show juggernauts slowed right down through shrunken audiences and the inevitable post-Liam Payne period of self-reflection.
The one person who encapsulated it all and gave me hope for an individualistic future was the ‘Femininomenon’ Chappell Roan. Just so many joyful boxes ticked. Writing from the heart with often seriously NSFW lyrics. A strong story of female support and empowerment with Olivia Rodrigues. The sense she’s doing it on her own terms from the way she dresses, the band camaraderie of her Tiny Desk Concert, to the way she’s laid out personal boundaries around press and fan intrusion.. And most importantly, a serious talent for both hooks and lyrics… could ‘Pink Pony Club’ become the gen z ‘American Pie’?
For a while the ‘elevator argument’ I’ve used to explain the generational shift is that millennials wanted to debate change, gen z just want to get on with it. For me, Chappell completely encapsulates this – her sexuality is simultaneously key and irrelevant to her success, she never abandons her authentic Mid West roots, and the songs are so good they appeal way beyond people like her… the key to changing hearts and minds. We all need to take this audience shift seriously – listen, never assume and learn.
Robert Jones
Senior VP, head of theater at AKA
The casting of Charli D’Amelio in the company of ‘& JULIET’ is a gift on many levels. There has never been a better nexus of content creation, the personal brand of a content creator, and the brand of a show. The pop joyride that is ‘& JULIET’ perfectly aligns with Charli’s influencer persona and audience. And indeed, it’s made all the richer as it stemmed from her ambition to take her professional dancing career to the next level – and auditioning for a dance-heavy track in a Broadway show was the perfect progression. As Broadway continues to strive for broader audiences—especially those who may be attending their first show—this kind of nuanced casting of an influencer with the genuine authenticity baked in is a marketer’s dream, unlocking new opportunities for reach and engagement. My team at AKA had the privilege of shaping the marketing strategy for ‘& JULIET’, leveraging this announcement to generate buzz and create bespoke content that not only excited fans but also kept them engaged and sharing.
Theatre has always been more niche than other entertainment with wider distribution, and so too has the impact of content creators. Theatre’s legacy far predates film and TV, while social media, as a newer form of entertainment, is still defining its place in the cultural landscape. Charli’s influence exemplifies how star power manifests in many forms and underscores how this moment will stand out as a key intersection of Broadway and TikTok in 2024.
